will mention here that my first antagonist, "The Eater of Melons," became a great friend of mine. He was my right-hand man and manager when I set up house on my own account, and did me many friendly services in the course of my acquaintance with him. He came to an unfortunate end some years later. The tribe were getting ready for a war expedition; poor Melons was filling cartridges from a fifty pound barrel of gunpowder, pouring the gunpowder into the cartridges with his hand, and smoking his pipe at the time, as I have seen the natives doing fifty times since: a spark fell into the cask, and it is scarcely necessary to say that my poor friend was roasted alive in a second. I have known three other accidents of the same kind, from smoking whilst filling cartridges. In one of these accidents three lives were lost, and many injured; and I really do believe that the certainty of death will not prevent some of the natives from smoking for more than a given time. I have often seen infants refuse the mother's breast, and cry for the pipe till it was given to them; and dying natives often ask for a pipe, and die smoking. I can clearly perceive that the young men of the present day are neither so tall, or stout, or strong, as men of the same age were when I first came to the country; and I believe that this smoking, from their infancy, is one of the chief causes of this decrease in strength and stature.
I am landed at last, certainly; but I am tattered and wet, and in a most deplorable plight: so, to make my story short—for I see, if I am too particular, I shall never come to the end of it—I returned to the ship, put myself to rights, and came on shore next day with all my taonga, to the great delight of the chief and tribe. My hospitable entertainer, Mr. ——, found room for my possessions in his store, and a room for myself in his house; and so now that I am fairly housed we shall see what will come of it.
I have now all New Zealand before me to caper about in; so I shall do as I like, and please myself. I shall keep to neither rule, rhyme, nor reason, but just write what comes uppermost to my recollection of the good old days. Many matters which seemed odd enough to me at first, have long appeared such mere matters of course, that I am likely to pass them over without notice. I shall, however, give some of the more striking features of those delectable days, now, alas! passed and gone.
Some short time after this, news came that a grand war expedition, which had been absent nearly two years at the South, had returned. This party were about a thousand strong, being composed of two parties, of about five hundred men each, from two different tribes, who had joined their force for the purpose of the expedition. The tribe with which Mr. ——and myself were staying, had not sent any men on this war party; but, I suppose to keep their hands in, had attacked one of the two tribes who had, and who were, consequently, much weakened by the absence of so many of their best men. It, however, turned out that after a battle—the ferocity of which has seldom been equalled in any country but this—our friends were defeated with a dreadful loss, having inflicted almost as great on the enemy. Peace, however, had afterwards been formally made; but, nevertheless, the news of the return of this expedition was not heard without causing a sensation almost amounting to consternation. The war chief of the party who had been attacked by our friends during his absence, was now, with all his men, within an easy day's march. His road lay right through our village, and it was much to be doubted that he would keep the peace, being one of the most noted war chiefs of New Zealand, and he and his men returning from a successful expedition.
All now was uproar and confusion; messengers were running like mad, in all directions, to call in stragglers; and the women were carrying fuel and provisions into the pa, or fortress, of the tribe. This pa was a very well built and strong stockade, composed of three lines of strong fence and ditch, very ingeniously and artificially planned; and, indeed, as good a defence as well could be imagined against an enemy armed only with musketry. All the men were now working like furies, putting this fort to rights, getting it into fighting order, mending the fences, clearing out the ditches, knocking down houses inside the place, clearing away brushwood and fern all around the outside within musket shot.
I was in the thick of it, and worked all day lashing the fence; the fence being of course not nailed, but lashed with toro-toro, a kind of tough creeping plant, like a small rope, which was very strong and well adapted for the purpose. This lashing was about ten or twelve feet from the ground, and a stage had to be erected for the men to stand on. To accomplish this lashing or fastening of the fence well and with expedition required two men, one inside the fence and another outside; all the men therefore worked in pairs, passing the end of the toro-toro from one to the other through the fence of large upright stakes and round a cross piece which went all along the fence, by which means the whole was connected into one strong wall. I worked away like fury, just as if I had been born and bred a member of the community; and moreover, not being in those days very particularly famous for what is called prudence, I intended also, circumstances permitting, to fight like fury too, just for the fun of the thing.
About a hundred men were employed in this part of the work, new lashing the pa. My vis-à-vis in the operation was a respectable old warrior of great experience and approved valour, whose name being turned into English meant "The eater of his own relations." This was quite a different sort of diet from "melons;" and he did not bear his name for nothing, as I could tell you if I had time; but I am half mad with haste, lashing the pa. I will only say that my comrade was a most bloodthirsty, ferocious, athletic savage, and his character was depicted in every line of his tattooed face. About twenty men had been sent out to watch the approach of the dreaded visitors. The repairing of the stockade went on all one day and all one night, by torchlight and by the light of huge fires lit in the inside. No one thought of sleep. Dogs barking, men shouting, children crying, women screaming, pigs squealing, muskets firing (to see if they were fit for active service and would go off), and above all the doleful tetere sounding. This was a huge wooden trumpet six feet long, which gave forth a groaning, moaning sound, like the voice of a dying wild bull. Babel, with a dash of Pandemonium, will give a faint idea of the uproar.
All preparations having been at last made, and no further tidings of the enemy, as I may call them, I took a complete survey of the fort; my friend the "Relation Eater" being my companion and explaining to me the design of the whole. I learned something that day; and I, though pretty well "up" in the noble science of fortification, ancient and modern, was obliged to confess to myself that a savage who could neither read nor write—who had never heard of Cohorn or Vauban—and who was moreover avowedly a gobbler up of his own relations, could teach me certain practical "dodges" in the defensive art quite well worth knowing.
A long shed of palm leaves had been also built at a safe and convenient distance from the fort. This was for the accommodation of the expected visitors, supposing they came in peaceful guise. A whole herd of pigs were also collected and tied to stakes driven into the ground in the rear of the fort. These were intended to feast the coming guests, according to their behaviour.
Towards evening a messenger from a neighbouring friendly tribe arrived to say that next day, about noon, the strangers might be expected; and also that the peace, which had been concluded with their tribe during their absence, had been ratified and accepted by them. This was satisfactory intelligence; but, nevertheless, no precaution must be neglected. To be thrown off guard would invite an attack, and ensure destruction; everything must be in order: gun cleaning, flint fixing, cartridge making, was going on in all directions; and the outpost at the edge of the forest was not called in. All was active preparation.
The path by which these doubtful friends were coming led through a dense forest, and came out on the clear plain about half a mile from the pa; which plain continued and extended in every direction around the fortress to about the same distance, so that none could approach unperceived. The outpost, of twenty men, was stationed at about a couple of hundred yards from the point where the path emerged from the wood; and as the ground sloped considerably from the forest to the fort, the whole intervening space was clearly visible.
Another night of alarm and sleepless expectation, the melancholy moan of the tetere still continuing to hint to any lurking enemy that we were all wide awake; or rather, I should say, to assure him most positively of
